Hi all
I restored my GEC BT318 some time ago and it's been working fairly well, with a few slight niggles, which now I think may be due to a dirty tuner. I want to clean the tuner as I haven't done so. What grease do people recommend to use as I've never had anything to do with this before so haven't any clue what to get.
Any recommendations appreciated
Thanks
'70
Servisol super 10 switch cleaner leaves an oil film that will protect the contacts for a while.
Dont spray it into the tuner, spray onto a lint free cloth and rub the contacts on the tuner biscuits clean, if you want to clean the fixed springy contacts you may need to remove some of the biscuits to gain access. Careful with those contacts they are delicate.
I used to use either MS4 or a grease from Electrolube, I have no idea what is available now.
Frank
Thank you for the update. 👍
Whatever grease is used it only needs a thin smear otherwise it could migrate to other parts of the tuner and cause problems.
Frank
Thank you, that sounds great. I have some switch cleaner to use already which I've found to work quite well. I've found a couple sources of electrolube grease which I'll grab some of. The only DC4 sources I've found are coming from the USA and so have pretty high postage costs.
Thanks again
'70
Way back in the day, we were warned that MS4, whilst preventing corrosion film on tuner contacts to occur, could cause problems with de-tuning if used too liberally. This is because it tends to creep, & go where you don't want it to go!
David.
I'll have to keep that in mind, I was actually fairly lucky with my GEC that it didn't need a regrease, just the contacts needed a thorough clean. Not that it did much anyway, unfortunately. But I'll keep that in mind for any other tuner that I may need to regrease in the future
Thanks
I would strongly recommend not to use ANY grease in a mechanical drum tuner.
The best way to clean the contact is mechanical: simply rotate the entire drum multiple times through an entire 360 revolution, both ways. That should clean most contacts. Opening the tuner and taking out biscuits should be avoided as much as possible!
Cheers, Pieter
